Maya spent 2 hours with her friends selling Girl Scout Cookies in front of the local grocery store this afternoon. Business was brisk, no doubt due to the excellent sales skills the girls have developed.

This afternoon I attended Maya’s winter dance recital in which she performed wonderfully. Jeanine left for Indianapolis yesterday to help her sister as she recuperates from hip replacement surgery so I also videotaped the jazz dance routine for her to enjoy when she returns on Tuesday.

Nicolai has been experimenting with wrestling from his knee in the neutral position. It makes him less vulnerable to being thrown off balance but requires additional effort to move around the mat. It is an interesting approach, and we will have to see how it works out over the course of the season.

Nicolai wrestled in his first two high school matches today with a split outcome. He lost by a score of 9-1 to his first opponent and won with a first period pin (shown here) in his second match. He showed great composure and strength but will need to continue to develop his technique and endurance.

I was clowning around in the lab at work today. Suctioned to my forehead is the speaker cone from the woofer used in our most recent product.

As the parent of a child with one leg, one finds oneself making many clothing modifications. Jeanine and I share equal responsibility for the task. Shown here is the stitch I used to close a leg opening on a pair of compression shorts that Nico will use under his wrestling uniform. This surging stitch also can accommodate a great deal of stretching which was needed for the material being used.

It is nice to be back home after 9 days on the road and to be greeted with a Christmas e-card from my sister Alissa. We had 6+ inches of snow this morning so I opted to work at home catching up on a mountain of e-mail. This evening Nicolai and I discussed strategy for his wrestle-off tomorrow in which he competes for a varsity position at 103 pounds against the incumbent junior at that weight. I lost all track of time and was late for the opening game of my indoor soccer season. I missed the entire first half and found my team losing 0-3. We finished with a 10-5 win and I chalked up two rather pretty goals, the first a nutmeg (through the legs) of the goalie and the second a nice lateral move and quick release.

I will travel a total of 24 hours straight to go from the hotel in Hong Kong to my home in Concord. A small consolation was some nice aerial photos of snow-swept landscapes.

After wrapping up business I make a 4 hour solo journey (car, train, taxi, train, bus) to Hong Kong without getting lost. I spend the night in style at the Novotel Hotel near the airport.

Today I tour the factory in which we complete assembly of our latest product. Despite some initial start up glitches, the factory is now cranking out thousands of units and it is very gratifying to see the quality of their work. We are trying desperately to keep pace with holiday demand for what looks like will be our most successful product ever. A high quality problem as we say.

When we arrived at the airport, we learned that our flight had been cancelled and we were asked to board a bus to another airport for our flight to Shenzhen. After waiting on the bus for some time, we were told that our original flight had been restored and we were asked to go to a new gate where we found some very unhappy passengers. They had been told their flight would be delayed by 8 hours and had become convinced that the airline was given their plane to us. An angry mob gathered around the gate agents screaming at them and demanding they be permitted to board. As passengers destined for Shenzhen began to board, the mob rushed the gate and police had to barricade the entrance while we were forced to push our way past these people. A decidedly harrowing experience to say the least. Never have I seen such a lack of civility or such restraint from law enforcement. In the US, 3 or 4 of the inciters would have been dragged away to jail. I am told that the police here do not like to make public displays of force but will deal with the ring leaders once the crowds and onlooking tourists have dispersed.

My colleagues and I boarded the Maglev train which travels at 1/3 the speed of sound (270 mph). The trip to Podung Airport takes 7 minutes. Such a train would take you from Boston to NYC in 42 minutes.

These scenes are far more typical than the glitzy skyscrapers and I only wish I had more time to explore.

I bid farewell to the fish that grace the hotel’s lobby before heading out for some street photography.